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CHATTERING CLASS: Kate Bocchio interviews potential new employee Alix Kraft for a job at BrightLine, a television ad firm, via Skype. Live video interviews are one way employers are using digital media to screen job candidates. Photo: NY Post: Brian Zak

(NY Post: Brian Zak)

She wasn’t desperately searching for a new job — but better benefits, a bigger salary and a boss who wasn’t a creep would be nice. So when Hailey heard that the hard goods retailer she had always wanted to work for was recruiting a district manager to cover the Summit, NJ area where she lived, she jumped on it. A week later she received an invite for a video interview.

For an in-person meeting, Hailey (who asked that her last named not be used out of fear of career repercussions), says she would have worn a suit — but getting decked out to sit in front of her computer at her kitchen table seemed unnatural. “Like I was trying too hard,” she notes. Besides, she was pretty sure the camera on her computer wouldn’t capture anything below her neck unless she sat way back. (She knew this because she always had to back away from the screen to show her mother what she was wearing during their Sunday Skype sessions.)

But her “interview” turned out to be anything but a casual online chat.

Hailey expected to have a virtual conversation with her boss-to-be — but when she logged in, there was no human being on the end. Instead, she was greeted by a question posed to her on her screen, and she was expected to answer it as her computer’s webcam recorded her: 30 seconds to read a question, two minutes to answer. No one on other side to tell her how she was doing. No nod. No, “Tell me more.”

“I rambled. I sounded like an idiot. I couldn’t make a single point,” she recalls. ”It was weird.”

Or maybe not so weird.

Welcome to interviewing circa 2013, when an increasing number of employers and recruiters are getting to know their job candidates via video — and not only via Skype or FaceTime. Video résumés, recorded elevator pitches and digitally recorded tests are just a few of the emerging tools employers are using to screen candidates.

According to an August 2012 survey by staffing service OfficeTeam, 63 percent of human resources managers said their company often conducts employment interviews via video, up from just 14 percent one year ago. And 13 percent of respondents think their organization will use video more frequently to meet with applicants in the next three years.

“Video interviews will be the norm in three years,” confirms Ryder Cullison, a manager at human resources technology provider Hire-Intelligence.

And unlike the video interviews of yesteryear — which were used primarily when job candidates and employers were situated too far away from one another to meet in person — some of today’s video interviews are simply one step of many in the job application process. Companies are now inviting job applicants to record their answers to interview questions via webcam so they can be viewed by multiple managers at any time, for instance. And they’re presenting job candidates with live, timed online challenges such as composing clever tweets, preparing mock budgets and even coding computer programs.

In still other cases, workers who approach some recruiters — like BevForce in TriBeCa and HireArt in SoHo – are required to create video profiles at the same time they submit their résumés.

“The initial (video) interview is your chance to impress us,” adds BevForce founder Josh Wand. Everyone who applies for a position through his company has to record one.

In other words, it’s a way to separate the wheat from the chaff.

HireVue, which provides a platform for companies to conduct digital interviews, says they’re experiencing record growth for several reasons.

For instance, everyone has access to a webcam, be it via their PC, tablet or phone. “This wasn’t the case a few years ago,” says chief marketing officer Kevin Marasco. Second, employers are finding it’s easier to be objective when they can play back videos and compare the way several candidates answered the same question. Finally, companies are under pressure to cut costs, and interviewing via video means that they don’t have to spend money flying people in.

So is interviewing via video here to stay? “It’s not a fad,” says Todd Raphael, editor of ERE Media, the go-to guide for recruiters worldwide. “It’s one of the hottest trends in the staffing industry.”

Though there are endless varieties of video interviews, we got the lowdown on the most common new ones. Take a look:

FACE TIME

Yes, there can be professional uses for FaceTime, Skype and the like.

Most similar to the traditional interview, job seekers can see the hiring manager’s face, read their body language and ask questions to make sure they’re being understood. BrightLine, a television advertising company based in Midtown, used Skype to hire six of its seven most recent recruits. Though there are many reasons for leveraging a video call, overcoming popular constraints such as time and distance rank high.

“As a CEO, my time is usually double booked, so I always conduct interviews for team members via Skype,” says CEO Jacqueline Corbelli.

And Alix Kraft, who was interviewed by the company last spring while she was finishing her studies at Syracuse, says the BrightLine team did a bang-up job of showing her what the company was like from many miles away. “I could see them, see how they were dressed, I could read their expressions and get a sense of their culture,” she says.

Tips: Environment is key in setting a professional tone. “It’s important to always be mindful of making sure you’re in a quiet, appropriate setting,” says BrightLine co-founder Robert Aksman. (That means no video-chatting in bed!) And relax — there’s no need to hire a makeup artist for your big moment. “It’s not as if we’re doing an interview for broadcast television,” says Katie Creaser, vice president of Affect, a public relations firm in Midtown which uses video interviews in its screening process.

THE ELEVATOR PITCH

Since pitching yourself for a job via video is quickly becoming as important a skill as writing your résumé, the time to start learning to do it is now. “It’s hard to stand out from the crowd as a piece of paper,” says Josh Tolan, CEO at sparkHire, a job-listings database. It launched last year and allows jobseekers to create elevator pitches — 60-second videos introducing yourself to potential employers — and video résumés for free. (Think Monster.com, with video.)

One special feature sparkHire offers is that once the video is made, it provides users with a link you can send to would-be employers — along with your résumé if they require one — or tag on to a clever tweet that includes a phrase like “Hire Me.”

It’s also worth noting sparkHire allows for an endless number of “takes” — so you can make new elevator pitches and video résumés as often as you want.

Ziggeo, a Manhattan-based start-up, allows employers to watch job applicants pitch their qualifications for specific job openings via two-minute videos. Résumés on the site are optional. These videos are more like a cover letter than a résumé, but they provide a quick way for hiring managers to decide whether they want to go to the next step of reading a résumé at all.

And in a world where companies receive hundreds of résumés per opening and managers are strapped for time, being able to watch a truly short video and click “NEXT” as soon as they decide whether they want to know more is a whole lot quicker than doing it the old fashioned way.

Tips: The elevator pitch is your chance to show the employer what you offer outside of where you went to college and where you worked. “Do not read your résumé into the camera,” advises Tolan.

With résumés, it’s sometimes hard to distinguish one from the next, whereas videos are multi-dimensional, warm and emotive. “This is your chance to put your best face forward — remember to be natural and authentic as you do that,” says Susan Danziger, CEO and founder of Ziggeo.

DIGITAL PROFILES

The digital profile is a job candidate’s recorded response to questions developed by recruitment firms and employers. They typically consist of three to 10 questions that appear on a screen — some of which are general, others which are geared toward a specific job category or position. Viewers can usually see you from the chest up, “But you need to show up in front of the camera the way you would for an interview. It’s a sign of respect,” says Wand. One bad example? Wand recalls a time someone showed up in front of the camera in a bathrobe.

On some sites, for example, job seekers only get one take. They give you 30 seconds to read and review the question on the screen and a few minutes to answer. You get one take, unless you lose your connection.

Other sites, like HireArt, give users an opportunity to answer a question, “rewind,” view their response and film retakes as needed. Once you submit your answer to a specific question, your answer is irretrievable. You also have the option doing the interview over hours, or even days. (So, if you’re having a bad time at it, you can try again tomorrow.)

Tips: Be ready to talk about who you are, what drives you and what makes you interesting. In other words, “know your story,” says Elli Sharef, co-founder of HireArt. “We as humans are storytellers, and we respond to stories.”

And do your research. Know the culture of the company you are interviewing with. “Companies hire people who fit in,” says Marasco.

PUT THEM TO THE TEST

In a video challenge a job candidate sits in front of a screen and performs a task related to the position he or she is interviewing for: It might involve writing an essay, composing clever tweets, preparing a budget, making an on-the-spot presentation and so on. Candidates generally have a fixed period of time to finish the task, which the hiring manager reviews, usually at a later time.

This process quickly allows “the cream of the crop to quickly rise to the top,” says Wand.

Olga Vidisheva, founder of SoHo-based Shoptique, says that these challenges are an essential part of her hiring process.

“Every single second of my time counts. I don’t have time to meet with six or seven people,” she says. “When I watch someone in the challenge, I can see how they think, how they rank their priorities and where they are.”

Tips: It’s not just about accomplishing the task; it is also about how you do it. If you’re coding a computer program, for example, you’ll get rated not only on whether the program runs, but also in how efficiently and elegantly you made that happen, according to HireVue’s Marasco.

It seems ridiculous that it needs to be said, but don’t cheat. Sharef recalls witnessing a job seeker cutting-and-pasting in content while they were being tested on a task. “It was a horror story,” she says.